Researchers at Oxford recently published a paper to measure how people's moral views match up to that of classical utilitarianism. Thought this would be a fun and interesting quiz for the forum to engage in. You can read more about it here.
http://www.jimaceverett.com/test/oxford-...ism-scale/
I got an overall score of 33 out of 63, which makes me a consequentialist it seems. I suspect most people who take this test will get similar results unless you're a hardcore utilitarian (à la Peter Singer).
I also scored 17 out of 35 on the Impartial Beneficence scale and 16 out of 28 on the Instrumental Harm scale.
http://www.jimaceverett.com/test/oxford-...ism-scale/
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According to classical utilitarianism, we should always act in the way that would maximize aggregate well-being. This means that the only thing that determines whether an act is morally right is whether, out of the available options, it is the act that would lead to the most happiness and the least suffering in the world, taking into account the welfare of all sentient beings, whether human or animal. An act that doesn’t maximize welfare in this way is morally wrong. On this moral view, no one counts for more than anyone else: our own interests and needs, and the interests and needs of our family and friends, never count for more than the interests and needs of any other person, however distant from us. According to utilitarianism, the only thing that matters is how our actions affect the amount of happiness in the world. It is always morally right to break a rule or principle if doing so would lead to the better outcome. The higher you score on the scale, the closer your own views fit with what classical utilitarianism says. If you are familiar with ethical theories, we could say that if you are an unqualified act utilitarian then you should score very highly this scale. If you are more of a rule utilitarian or a consequentialist whose axiology includes more than welfare then you are somewhat less utilitarian – but still high. Moving further away from the top end of the scale, the more a person thinks of morality in partial terms, and the more (and the stronger the) deontological constraints they accept, the lower scores you should have. If you are attracted to W. D. Ross’s pluralist deontological theory you would rank low on this scale. If you hold an absolutist Kantian theory which gives limited weight to consequences, or a highly traditional moral view, then you should rank at the very bottom of the scale.
I got an overall score of 33 out of 63, which makes me a consequentialist it seems. I suspect most people who take this test will get similar results unless you're a hardcore utilitarian (à la Peter Singer).
I also scored 17 out of 35 on the Impartial Beneficence scale and 16 out of 28 on the Instrumental Harm scale.